The demand from John Cornyn and Thom Tillis is unusually concrete for a confirmation fight: put it in writing. The it is the settlement of Trump's IRS tax-leak suit, which as drafted created a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" fund available to Trump allies and January 6 defendants, and would have shielded Trump, his family and his companies from future IRS audits. [1] After bipartisan criticism, the fund was withdrawn verbally. The two senators want the Department of Justice's word on paper before they vote to hand its nominee the department. Cornyn canceled a Tuesday meeting with Todd Blanche and asked for written confirmation instead. [1]
On Wednesday the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed its vote on Blanche, with no new date. On the committee's math, one Republican defection blocks advancement, and there are two. [1][2]
The president's answer came on Truth Social: "I have no objection to temporarily withdrawing Todd's name, if they do not do the right thing, and putting him back after Cornyn and Tillis are out of office." [2]
Read the sentence twice, because its practical content is easy to miss. Blanche has been acting attorney general since April, when Trump removed Pam Bondi. [1] Withdrawing the nomination does not remove him from the Justice Department. It removes the Justice Department from the Senate. The office stays filled; the consent stays unasked; the only thing that lapses is the process in which two senators could demand a document.
The steel-man for the White House position: presidents are entitled to nominees of their choice, the fund was, by all accounts, withdrawn, and a confirmation held hostage to a settled question is politics as usual. If the fund is dead, though, the written confirmation costs nothing. The refusal to provide it is the only fact in this story that requires explanation, and so far the explanation on offer is a plan to outwait the people asking.
What happens next is genuinely open. The committee has no rescheduled date. Cornyn and Tillis have not moved. The nomination sits, the acting attorney general acts, and the two-word demand at the center of it, in writing, remains unmet. We will report the paper when it exists, or the withdrawal when it happens, whichever comes first.
